Aubrey Plaza Talks SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED, THE TO-DO LIST (THE HAND JOB), PARKS AND REC, and More at Sundance 2012

One of the many films that premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival was director Colin Trevorrow‘s Safety Not Guaranteed. Written by Derek Connolly, the film’s about a trio of magazine employees investigate a classified ad that seeks a partner for time travel. One employee develops feelings for the paranoid but compelling loner and tries to discover what he’s really up to. It’s based on a real ad that was passed around the internet in 2005 and the movie stars Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson and Karan Soni. Shortly after premiering, FilmDistrict bought the film, so you can look forward to seeing it at some point in the future. For more on the film, you can read Matt’s review.

After seeing the movie, I got to sit down with Aubrey Plaza for an extended interview. We talked about being at Sundance, karaoke, what’s the last video game she’s played (Batman: Arkham City and Braid), 3D gaming, how she got involved in Safety Not Guaranteed and what it’s about, and what it was like to watch the film for the first time with a big crowd at Sundance. In addition, she talked about Parks and Recreation, working with Bill Murray on director Roman Coppola‘s A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, and director Maggie Carey‘s The To-Do List (aka The Hand Job), in which she plays a recent high school graduate intent on losing her virginity before going off to college. She said filming some of it bordered on pornography. Hit the jump to watch the interview.

Finally, if you missed my video interview with Jake Johnson for Safety Not Guaranteed (and New Girl), click here.

Aubrey Plaza Time Index

Talks about what it’s like to bring a movie to Sundance.

0:55 – Her go-to karaoke song is Enya’s “Only Time.”

1:25 – She recently purchased a PlayStation to play 3D games like Batman: Arkham City and Braid. She’s not a fan of 3D movies in the theater, but “there’s something kind of awesome” about 3D at home.

2:50 – Pitches the movie for people who haven’t seen it yet.

4:40 – Talks about what it was like to see the film for the first time with the premiere audience. She did not know the “totally insane and unexpected” ending before she watched.

6:20 – She loved the script, and though she was uncertain about a first-time director, working with Trevorrow turned out great. Not much changed from script to screen other than the ending.

8:00 – Talks about the upcoming project The To-Do List (aka The Hand Job), in which she plays a recent high school graduate intent on losing her virginity before going off to college. She said, “The To Do List, or The Hand Job, or whatever you want to call it is totally different than [Safety Not Guaranteed]. I even look physically different. I look like a 1993 high school student. My character is totally different. I play Brandy Clark, who is a recent graduate of high school—valedictorian, top of her class, type A, Tracy Flick-esque character who is a total prude, and who has never done anything with guys. She realizes right after graduating that she has to lose her virginity before college, or she will not be prepared in the right way. It’s all about preparation and homework for her. So, she decides to use the summer as time to accomplish all of these sexual things that she needs to accomplish. She makes a list of things that she’s never done. She’s never done anything: handjobs, blowjobs, dry humping. I think that’s on the list. There are a lot of things on the list. She goes through the list, and she’s really efficient, and really good at homework. So she becomes a raging slut by accident because she’s so focused.”

10:00 – Some of the scenes bordered on pornography. She says, “Let me just say that there were a couple moments when I was doing it, when I was like, ‘I think I’m shooting a porn right now, but I’m not sure. I’m just not sure.’ I know that there’s some things that we did that were so crazy that the producers were like, ‘That’s NC-17. That stuff can’t even be in the movie.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, it’s a good thing I did that for two hours.’ Now it’s not even going to be in the movie, but somewhere in an editing room someone has footage of me angrily masturbating.”

11:00 – Talks about working on Parks and Recreation.

11:45 – She shares two scenes with Bill Murray on A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, and “fell in love with him.”

12:50 – “Let’s all understand how good that film is, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.”

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